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What did the Mayfair Witches look like? Who did they resemble in the books? I started this page in the first few years after the site first launched in 2008...
Face of the Mayfair Witches
Face of the Mayfair Witches
These galleries are collections of some of the approaches I've taken in trying to see if I could recreate the Mayfair Witches the way Anne Rice described them in the novels.
As more and more novels have made their way to the screen, more and more fans have used a wide range of newer technology to return to the source material--the novels themselves. We've seen some amazing graphics shared by users across various platforms showing the characters as described by their authors. The Game of Thrones series, including House of the Dragon, is one notable example.
There have been many fans who have taken this approach to the Vampire Chronicles, as well. The Parlor does have a newer section opened for discussing this series, which is far more well-known than the Mayfair Witches, yes. Lestat's Parlor opened during Season 2 of the recent AMC series, but also aims to provide more background on the publication history of Anne Rice's novel, and some of the graphics created that seemed to later inspire the screen adaptations of the novel and its many sequels.
Come Into My Parlor, however, remains primarily focused on the Lives of the Mayfair Witches. There is one page that is a little different from when I originally published it, though. The Doorway and the Thirteen. Many of us over the years have created images or graphics of what this piece of jewelry might look like. Then, I went back to the novel, The Witching Hour.
This is the wonderful part of things like Amazon Kindle. Once it indexes the books you buy, you can do a search like it's a concordance. And you can get an exact reference to include that will give the location in the ebook and, if the publisher includes this data, the corresponding page number in the Mass Market edition of the novel. So, I did a search for the emerald necklace.
Putting together a detailed description of the emerald necklace straight from the novel, I wanted to see what such a piece of jewelry would have looked like. An Internet search showed me a great deal, and gave me a much clearer idea of what an emerald necklace, a pendant necklace, might have looked like as Anne Rice described it. So, I put together the section on the above linked page that discusses the Mayfair emerald of the novels.
The Doorway and the Thirteen now includes some of the images I managed to find online. The images aim to show what an historically accurate necklace like the one in the novels would look like. Of course, my own attempts to create a 3D version of the necklace also appear in the section.
Over time, I've also learned that NightCafe has learned how to create a necklace such as the one described, and I have developed quite a collection of images showing it on various character creations. At the top of this page is one of those character creations as an example. I've also indulged as well in--my favorite--showing the Mayfair emerald as a tiny, miniature addition to pieces of cameo jewelry that took me a while to create the way I wanted.
The necklace is such an integral part of the Mayfair Witches that I think it deserves discussion in its own right.
An enormous pendant on a cameo that is more of a portrait...
Recently, Anne Rice's estate has released a Special Edition of The Witching Hour with a new forward by Christopher Rice, illustrated by Art of the Imagination. I've decided to focus more on the Mayfair emerald and the many ways it has been depicted since the novel's publication in 1990 rather than on the Mayfair Witches themselves. The illustrations in this new edition of The Witching Hour include each of the Legacy witches and are truly incredible.
Along with the new, illustrated editions of both The Witching Hour and Interview With the Vampire, another piece of news has dropped on Anne's Facebook page. This fall, a 50th Anniversary edition of Interview With the Vampire...
A pale blond and an emerald with a genuine murky look as genuine emeralds actually have
You can see some of the cameo creations above along with others on Come Together: The Mayfair Witches.
Please enjoy the galleries and projects, and everything else the Parlor has to offer. I hope it will help to bring more readers to discover and appreciate Anne Rice's extraordinary Lives of the Mayfair Witches novels.
Page and Screen
Page and Screen
Below is a relic of both the Talamasca's descriptions of Mary Beth Mayfair and Stella Mayfair according to the actresses they resembled physically, and a long ago guess of mine as to who would make a great Rowan Mayfair on screen. And then...who did play Rowan onscreen.
Joan Crawford
So, what did the Mayfair Witches look like? Other characters? It might be fun to add more to this page, especially as (I hope) more characters in the Mayfair Witches series make it to the screen themselves...
Mary Beth Mayfair was said to resemble Joan Crawford.
Stella Mayfair was said to resemble Clara Bow.
Clara Bow
Ashley Judd
My Choice of Actress to Play Rowan Mayfair (several years ago):
Ashley Judd.
One of my favorite actresses, Ashley Judd has the deep voice, great beauty and presence that makes me think "Rowan Mayfair".
To try to imagine what Rowan Mayfair actually looks like based upon the descriptions of her in the books, I think Ashley Judd is the closest physical model of her. She is also the actress who would be able to portray her accurately and intelligently.
So, who did end up playing Rowan Mayfair?
Ashley Judd as a Blonde
Page to the Small Screen
Page to the Small Screen
In January 2023, AMC and AMC+ released Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches as a television series. Season 1, based mostly on The Witching Hour, the first novel in the Lives of the Mayfair Witches series, cast Alexandra Daddario as the main character, Rowan. However, the show does have some marked differences from the source material.
The first is that instead of naming the main character Rowan Mayfair in keeping with the novels, she was named Rowan Fielding. The character retained the profession of neurosurgeon, making her Dr. Rowan Fielding. The image above shows Dr. Rowan Fielding standing outside the Mayfair crypt during the entombment of her birth mother, Dierdre Mayfair. Behind her, you can see names of other Mayfairs entombed in the crypt, and the name of one who is not.
Rowan Mayfair.
Deirdre and the rest of the Mayfair family were told Rowan had died at birth, though this was not true. Still, it was still a moment that had an oddly chilling effect when I first saw the name of the character as it had been in the novels engraved on the crypt.
Stella Mayfair, mother of Antha, grandmother of Deirdre, great-grandmother of Rowan. Sean Lacy Mayfair was just Sean Lacy in the novels, and he was Deirdre Mayfair's father. Antha was Deirdre's mother. For those who are confused about where Carlotta Mayfair fit into all of this, Carlotta Mayfair was the sister of Stella Mayfair.
And there is Millie Dear, whose ghost greeted the doctor by the old, haunted swimming pool in the beginning of The Witching Hour. That particular detail--Millie's presence in the Mayfair house as a ghost in the present day--was in the novel.
What of the rest of the Mayfair Witches, then? Other characters in the novels? To answer that question, a study of Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches on AMC is in order. To find out a bit more about the AMC series, this section of pages are a good place to start.
Now, what in the...?! 🤣
From the Archive
From the Archive
Mayfair Witches in Pictures, 2008-2023
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